Universal Video Capture For Xbox 360 Games?


Recommended Posts

Is Microsoft Working on Universal Vid Cap for Xbox 360 Games?

500x_custom_1254499128935_Theater.jpg

In a meeting last week with a game developer at the Tokyo Game Show, I asked them if they were planning on trying to incorporate in-game video capture into their title. The type you see in Halo 3.

The answer was interesting and, I believe, accidental.

"We'd love to have video capture in our game, but why work on something that the platform holder is already developing," said the developer, who I'm keeping anonymous to cover for his accidental slip-up.

The idea of a universal, platform-level video capture system for games seems like a good idea, and one that fits in nicely with the plans that Microsoft has for the Xbox 360.

When I had a chance to sit down with Microsoft's Scott Austin, director of digital games at Live, I asked him about the concept.

Microsoft, I noted, has made it a point to try and drive innovation on their consoles with software. They were the first gaming console to fully, successfully embrace online play when they introduced the Live service on their original Xbox. When the Xbox 360 hit, the software company unveiled Achievements, something that has approached becoming almost a norm among online gaming now.

Could the ability to capture and share videos from games be the next big software development for the Xbox 360?

"We are always thinking about ways that Live at the platform level can make games better," Austin said. "I'm not going to comment on video capture, but you can assume we are thinking about ways to make things more interactive.

"Interactivity used to mean things like multiplayer, now you see more cooperative things in games."

Austin points to the in-game leaderboards of Xbox Live title Shadow Complex and the meta game incorporated in Battlefield 1943 that had all players working to unlock a new map. (The same communal unlock was in the PS3 version of the game as well.)

Communal videos then, I pointed out, seem to be a step in the right direction. And I've heard rumblings of it coming to other top games, like Dead Rising 2.

Austin was coy in his reply.

"We want to have better quality and more immersive experiences," he said. "We are always looking to innovate.

"When innovation becomes table stakes we want to move forward. We want to make all entertainment services more rich with our live services."

So is that a yes or a no?

Kotaku

Link to comment
Share on other sites

In a meeting last week with a game developer at the Tokyo Game Show, I asked them if they were planning on trying to incorporate in-game video capture into their title. The type you see in Halo 3. The answer was interesting and, I believe, accidental.

"We'd love to have video capture in our game, but why work on something that the platform holder is already developing," said the developer, who I'm keeping anonymous to cover for his accidental slip-up.

The idea of a universal, platform-level video capture system for games seems like a good idea, and one that fits in nicely with the plans that Microsoft has for the Xbox 360.

When I had a chance to sit down with Microsoft's Scott Austin, director of digital games at Live, I asked him about the concept.

Microsoft, I noted, has made it a point to try and drive innovation on their consoles with software. They were the first gaming console to fully, successfully embrace online play when they introduced the Live service on their original Xbox. When the Xbox 360 hit, the software company unveiled Achievements, something that has approached becoming almost a norm among online gaming now.

Could the ability to capture and share videos from games be the next big software development for the Xbox 360?

"We are always thinking about ways that Live at the platform level can make games better," Austin said. "I'm not going to comment on video capture, but you can assume we are thinking about ways to make things more interactive.

"Interactivity used to mean things like multiplayer, now you see more cooperative things in games."

Austin points to the in-game leaderboards of Xbox Live title Shadow Complex and the meta game incorporated in Battlefield 1943 that had all players working to unlock a new map. (The same communal unlock was in the PS3 version of the game as well.)

Communal videos then, I pointed out, seem to be a step in the right direction. And I've heard rumblings of it coming to other top games, like Dead Rising 2.

Austin was coy in his reply.

"We want to have better quality and more immersive experiences," he said. "We are always looking to innovate.

"When innovation becomes table stakes we want to move forward. We want to make all entertainment services more rich with our live services."

So is that a yes or a no?

Source: Kotaku

Link to comment
Share on other sites

hopefully its true and hopefully it records the headset communications too (yourself included)

ive had some real funny times, and i know for a fact there will be some bannings off that

Edited by g~man
Link to comment
Share on other sites

http://www.engadget.com/2009/10/07/xbox-36...deta/#continued

At 5:30 she says that you'll eventually be able to post a video of something on Facebook from your 360. Sounds like something is in the works.

I just do not see them being able to pull this off (universal). Maybe for arcade games.

But I did not check out the video but from what you said, she could easily mean that you can take your 360 webcam (if you have one) and record video then post it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Halo 3 does not even have video capture, it captures data which has to be re fed into the game engine to produce the actual video, this is why the Halo 3 "film" files are so small. I really don't see how that could be made universal, everything would have to use the Halo 3 engine or something very similar.

Edit: I knew I read this somewhere

http://www.bungie.net/content.aspx?link=h3betaSavedFilms

For the Beta version, your camera view and playback options are severely limited, but this is just a taste to give you an idea of what’s going to be possible when the game ships. It’s important to note that saved films are not video – they’re data – a recording of the activities and events that took place in the entirety of the game, played back using the game engine. This means that the game can be played back from the perspective of any player, with an exact duplication of events. It has the added benefit of being comparatively small. A Saved film of 6MB would be enormous (100s of MB) if it were a WMV file or similar.
Edited by Treemonkeys
Link to comment
Share on other sites

It makes sense to me. With the social networking integration, sharing videos of cool gaming moments will be extremely easy, as long as there's a way to capture said videos. I can only imagine it makes as much sense to the Xbox team that they would want to integrate it into the system.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.